Facing my ugliness

“The process of personal growth isn’t always easy. We must face our own ugliness. We often must become painfully aware of the unworkability of a pattern before we’re willing to give it up. It often seems, in fact, that our lives get worse rather than better when we begin to work deeply on ourselves.” ~Marianne Williamson

The last month or so have brought a number of events and interactions that have caused me to have to face my own ugliness. It’s not easy or pleasant to look at, which is probably why I generally work so hard not to look.

For as self-critical as I’ve always been, you’d think that this would come as second nature to me, but I’m realizing that much of my self-criticism was really a self-defense mechanism. It was a strategy of being so critical of surface things that I can’t change (for example, my looks) to avoid looking more deeply at the real ugliness I can change (for example, broken patterns of behaving).

It’s really a rather ingenuous strategy for avoiding the unpleasant process of change. Even moreso, it’s a brilliant method for avoiding having to take responsibility for cleaning up my shit. After all, I can’t be expected to take the responsibility of changing that which I haven’t seen … and I’ll never see it if I don’t look. It allows me to keep right on acting out my usual patterns in the comfort of my familiar misery.

The problem comes when I decide I’m ready to take responsibility for my own personal growth, when I decide I’m ready to clean up my mess, when I decide I’m ready to find ways to make my life work for me rather than against me. The only way to do that is to look deeply and intently at myself, and be honest with myself about what I find there.

Life seems to be trying to help me out by providing situations to give me glimpses into any number of my unworkable patterns that I’ve been trying to avoid noticing for too long. I have days where I get pretty discouraged by seeing all these patterns I’d like to change and realizing just how deeply ingrained so many of them are. It’s overwhelming sometimes.

Oddly enough, even though I’ve tried so hard to hide from looking at this stuff and as discouraging as it is to see it now, I’m actually feeling better about who I am with this approach than I did all those years of trying to hide. As I grow to accept the things I can’t change and focus on those I can, my self-esteem and my confidence grows. It’s a slow growth plagued by constant downturns each time I find another aspect of my ugliness, but it is growth nonetheless.

I find comfort in knowing that I can expect for things to get worse as I start doing this deep work of personal growth because it tells me that I’m on the right track. I must be making progress even on the days when it feels like the mountain of unworkable patterns is growing faster than I can keep track of them. But as I am able to recognize each pattern as just a pattern that I can change if I want to, I find the strength and the courage to keep looking and keep changing.

A Note on Comments: A chrysalis is by nature a fragile and vulnerable place to be, so I am committed to keeping this a safe place for me and for my readers. Comments sharing your own journey, even if your experience is different from mine, are always welcome and encouraged. Expressions of support or encouragement are also welcome. Comments that criticize, disparage, correct, or in any way attempt to undermine the validity of another person’s experience or personal insight are not welcome here and will be deleted.